Background information about Maggie's

Sometime in 1982, a Toronto street girl named Peggie Miller got busted
for keeping a common bawdy house when she picked up a cop and took him
back to her place. She pleaded "not guilty" but lost in court. Peg's
lawyer told her there wasn't much point in appealing the case; the
problem was the law. If she wanted justice, the law would have to
change first. She told Peg how to get hold of people who were fighting
the law.

Peggie hooked up with a few people, most of whom (Danny Cockerline,
Chris Bearchell, and Gwendolyn) are part of Maggie's today; they
helped her start the Canadian Organization for the Rights of
Prostitutes (CORP).

CORP started out trying to organize pros to fight for law reform so
that they could improve their working conditions. But Peggie also
realized that things people go through in the business because the
work is illegal and people are down on them for doing the job get in
the way of sex workers getting organized. That's where the idea for
Maggie's came from.

Peggie persuaded Chris to help her recruit the first board, which
began meeting September 5, 1986. We thought that we could get the
broader community - maybe even the government or people with money - to
support a project that involved prostitutes joining the self-help
movement. We imagined male and female pros providing access to
information and services to other pros. Our first vision was something
like a 24-hour laundromat, with attached daycare centre and space to
run everything from self-defense classes to money-management
seminars. We picked the name "Maggie's" for Margaret (Babba Yagga)
who, along with women like Gwendolyn, organized Better End All Vicious
Erotic Repression (BEAVER), the first prostitutes' rights group in
Toronto (in the late 70s).

In 1986, Danny began to organize a (volunteer) response to the AIDS
crisis. In May, 1988, Maggie's received our first AIDS-prevention
funding for the Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project, which has been growing
and thriving ever since. In August, 1991, we were finally incorporated
under the name the "Toronto Prostitutes' Community Service Project."
Our application for charitable status with Revenue Canada was approved
in December, 1991.

The Prostitutes' Safe Sex Project. (PSSP) in 1993

Old and new challenges

Demand on the street for our condom and information distribution
services continued to grow. PSSP's number of outreach contacts in 1993
increased 27% over 1992 to 10,500 contacts. PSSP distributed 69,465
condoms (a 76% increase over 1992) and 7,645 pieces of AIDS prevention
information.

The recession has continued to make itself felt. People who have lost
jobs in other sectors of the economy and have been forced to depend
upon (often inadequate) social assistance are turning to the sex
trade. Such newcomers turn up on the streets, where the downturn in
the economy also means that money is scarce - as it is for escorts and
others who work indoors. This influx of newcomers has meant that the
old "strolls" are growing while new strolls are developing all the
time, wherever there are concentrations of poorer people- even in the
suburbs.

In the greater Toronto area, an increasing number of ads are being
placed in all publications that print escorts ads. Bars that are
licensed to employ strippers are also feeling the economic crunch;
many are no longer paying performers, expecting them to work for tips
only. The increased competition is pushing strippers to engage in more
explicit and sometimes riskier behaviour.

Poor economic conditions also encourage the spread of illegal
drug-use, especially the use of "crack," which is notoriously cheap
and addictive. Many new people are turning to the sex trade to support
a drug habit. This is another factor that is driving prices down
throughout the sex industry. As well as increasing a person's risk of
HIV infection through unprotected oral sex (smoking crack can cause
sores in the mouth), crack, like any intoxicant, can impair judgement
and aggravate a new or addicted prostitute's risk behaviour vis-à-vis
commercial sex.

Newcomers to the sex industry don't just need information about AIDS,
they also need to know about all of the sexually transmitted diseases
and a variety of other risks. We continue to experience a demand for
services that go beyond AIDS and STD prevention. Common issues include
discrimination, parenting, support for coping with addiction, police
violence and violence on the street and at home, and legal
charges.

The continued criminalization of sex work, and in particular the
over-zealousness of police in enforcing the law, puts an enormous
amount of pressure on sex workers, pressure that can lead to unsafe
sex. In strip clubs and escort agencies, for example, the illegality
of sex for money leads to a denial it is taking place. This makes
promotion of safer sex practices extremely difficult. On the street
where prostitution takes place more openly, safe sex is the norm. But
constant arrests and harassment by police, residents and abusive
clients (abuse that is encouraged by criminalization), as well as
incarceration, all take their toll on street workers.

Meeting the challenge. The year of the van

In 1993, we acquired a van courtesy of the Trillium Foundation. It has
allowed us to reach out to more of those street prostitutes who can't
or won't come to Maggie's resource centre, especially for those sex
workers who have been alienated by traditional service agencies. The
van has provided a place for street prostitutes to get warm and to
talk; allowed us to carry our street outreach services to a larger
number of more distant (suburban) strolls; and aided networking with
other agencies and service providers, not just in Toronto but
throughout the province. The van has also facilitated group meetings
by bussing sex workers to events they would not ordinarily be able to
attend. Provincial outreach

At the initiation of the AIDS Bureau of the Ontario Ministry of
Health, we began a one-year community development project in June,
1993 that is almost complete. The purpose of the project is to
sensitize service organizations to the needs of sex workers, to share
Maggie's expertise on working with sex workers, and to connect to sex
workers with these services. We had hoped to establish a provincial
network of sex workers. Our trips to other communities in Ontario and
our contact by phone with agencies in other cities has convinced us of
the need for peer education for sex workers outside of Toronto.

We have made some valuable contacts despite the difficulty of
connecting with sex workers in places we're not familiar with. We are
less optimistic, however, that other AIDS organizations will be able
to provide effective services to prostitutes. It is unlikely that many
sex workers would feel comfortable in non-sex worker run agencies, no
matter how sensitized they may be.

We are considering the idea of seeking funds from different
municipalities to hire sex workers to do AIDS outreach in their
communities. These people would be hired and trained by Maggie's and
would use Maggie's resources. This would require additional staff to
coordinate.

Reducing drug-related harm

We applied and were awarded a six-month grant from Health Canada's
Health Promotion and Community Development Division to conduct a needs
assessment of prostitutes who use drugs. The study turned out a great
success, providing us with a tool to involve volunteers and to bring
many sex workers into contact with Maggie's for the first time. We
gathered a wealth of information from 164 people, that is being
analyzed for a report. We hope to use the results to persuade
potential funders of the need to provide services to those in our
community with drug addictions. These results will be published as a
report within the next couple of months.

Legal working group

We have always wanted PSSP's outreach to include introducing ourselves
to people who are going through the legal system facing
prostitution-related charges. We want them to know that Maggie's is
available and can provide safe-sex resources and moral and practical
support. Our new legal working group has begun the initial steps to
put a CourtWatch program in place. We are confident that the program
will be up and running this year. The Legal Primer for pros, funded by
the Ontario Women's Directorate, is nearing completion. The
"primer" will be produced as a series booklets focusing on
different areas of the sex trade. Who's Jailbait?, a booklet on the
laws about age of consent has already been produced. Drafting of
Holding Court: A Guide Through the sSystem, is complete and ready to
put into the established format. Others in the series currently in
progress are My Bawdy's My Business, for people who work indoors,
Communicating for the Purpose for the street and Legal Tips for
Working Strips for people who work in strip clubs. All the booklets in
this series will eventually be available as a handbook.

The resource centre

The PSSP Resource Centre, funded by Health Canada continues to grow as
a repository of a variety of materials which we've either produced or
obtained elsewhere. Work on sorting the archives and resource files is
almost complete. We have attempted to simplify our filing system to
make them more accessible to more people. Being better organized will
allow us to keep the material more secure. (Some books have
disappeared from the library.) We are proud of what is possibly the
largest prostitute archives in the world.

We have completed a new order form to allow us to distribute our
materials more widely. The form includes the info-kits we produce as
well as our buttons, pamphlets, t-shirts, etc. We expect orders for
materials to increase when we mail out the order form with the next
newsletter.

In addition to being a repository of material, the resource centre
provides a space for meetings, working, drop-ins, condom pick-ups,
volunteer training and involvement and a variety of other
uses. Because of the demand for space we took over additional space
across the hall (donated by the landlord) to convert into a meeting
and drop-in space. Work is now underway to rearrange the
centre.

The additional space was much needed to accommodate our staff which
has grown from the original three to eleven (including positions which
are funded through such skills development agencies as Futures and
Vocational Rehab Services).

We have also expanded our computer system courtesy of the Trillium
Foundation ($12,000). Maggie's now has a Macintosh production centre
which is now being used to train staff and volunteers and produce new
materials. Our new/used computer centre includes a Laser Writer II,
two Mac IIci's, a scanner (for digitizing images), a cartridge drive
for back-up, and a fax modem! We have also purchased software packages
for word processing, data-basing, spreadsheets, desktop layout, and
photo manipulation.

The new computer centre has been used to convert the Bad Trick Sheet
to a user-friendly process and to train new staff to maintain it. We
have created new data-bases including one for the mailing list with
over 200 entries and for the study to reduce drug-related harm, a
data-base with 78 question fields and 164 respondents.

Health promotion materials

We continued to produced a wide variety of our own material this
year. The Bad Trick Sheet (a list of descriptions of violent tricks
for pros working the streets) continues to be one of the most
effective outreach tools that Maggie's has developed. The Bad Trick
Sheet has collected 150 bad date reports since September,
1990. Periodically, Maggie's has also published a Bad Trick Sheet for
the boys town stroll. On December 6, 1993, we launched our new Bad
Calls List, modeled on the Bad Trick Sheet, for pros who work
indoors. The Bad Calls List is dedicated to Grayce Elizabeth Baxter,
an escort prostitute who was murdered by a client. As of March 16,
1994, we had collected 21 entries. It has been received with great
interest and has already recruited new volunteers. we received a small
grant ($1,500) from the Breaking the Cycle of Violence Committee of
the City of Toronto for software and technical support.

1993 was a bad year for the Maggie's newsletter, mainly due to
commitments to so many other projects. Maggie's åZine the newsletter's
new face lift, is now complete and planning to publish quarterly as it
has always been a great way to get people involved in Maggie's.

Maggie's continues to turn out a steady stream of AIDS prevention
promotional materials including the ever-popular "How to have
Safer Sex" pamphlet, t-shirts, Safe Sex Pro cards (explaining to
tricks why they have to wear condoms), posters, buttons, and
matches. Initiated by the need for quick and easy info on the
increased risk of oral sex for crack users, the "crack card"
has become a model for a complete new set of cards. They include cards
on TB, hepatitis, nonoxynol-9, lube, HIV reinfection, and "If cops
want to talk to you," as well as cards targeted at strippers and
male pros.

Media and community relations

Since the centre opened, we've become more entrenched in our community
and have begun to develop a bit of a profile in the media. The
response of Maggie's members to broader issues (the law, neighbourhood
issues, police perpetrating or refusing to investigate violence
against pros) in public forums has sometimes been covered in the
press. And members of Maggie's have spoken as individuals to reporters
and on radio and television shows about prostitution generally and
about particular issues. Favourable stories about Maggie's have
appeared in some of the alternative press. Coverage of our highly
successful fund-raiser WhoreCulture was very supportive including a
rave review in Adam magazine by Veronica Vera.

Less positive coverage for Maggie's has been press around Matthew
McGowan. Matthew, 22, a hard working volunteer and contracted worker,
and voting member of Maggie's was charged for being in a video tape he
made with his 14-year-old lover and another boy (14) from the
stroll. The video was later purchased in an undercover investigation
from a video collector who was charged with possession and
distribution under the new "youth porn law," section 163.1 of
the Criminal Code. (The law makes it illegal to possess, produce or
distribute the visual or written depiction of someone under 18 years,
or who appears to be under 18 years, in a sexual manner even though 14
is the age of consent for most sexual acts) The press and police
suggested Matthew's participation in a "kiddie porn" ring and
implied Maggie's involvement in such a ring by association. The staff
and the board of Maggie's have been unanimous in their public support
of Matthew, and of the many other boys who have been harassed and
charged in this attack on young gay men, most of whom are
prostitutes. Members of Maggie's introduced a motion at the Ontario
AIDS Network opposing the "youth porn" law on the grounds that
it makes it a crime to make or own sexually explicit safe sex
materials for teenagers. Opposition to the law is widespread and
Maggie's has garnered a lot of support.

The community

Maggie's continued as an active member of the Canadian AIDS Society in
1993, and is also an active member of the Ontario AIDS Network, the
International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights (ICPR) and the Network
of Sex Work Related HIV Projects. We also helped found the Coalition
Advocating Safer Hustling (CASH), an organization which we contributed
the name and constitution for. Members of CASH, most of whom were from
HIV prevention projects which provide services for male prostitutes,
were astounded at how advanced our peer education project was after
meeting three members of Maggie's at its inaugural conference in San
Francisco. Danny Cockerline, Andrew Sorfleet, and Brian Wiles, linked
with other sex workers to refuse participation unless voting control
and direction of the network was in the hands of sex workers. CASH is
a project funded by American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR), and
administered by the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York.

This June, Danny received funding to attend and speak at the IX
International AIDS Conference in Berlin at a panel of mostly sex
workers. The topic was barriers to AIDS prevention among sex
workers. Having an official prostitute event at the International was
a first and we were proud to be asked to be part of it. In addition to
the panel there was another ICPR meeting with sex workers from around
the world.

Closer to home, Maggie's continues its close relationship with the Sex
Workers' Alliance of Toronto. Together we held an open house for
escorts after the police busts of escorts early in the year. Over 30
people showed up to ask questions of lawyer Peter Maloney who kindly
volunteered his time. Together we also hosted meetings on the themes
of "Beat the Sweeps" and "Stop Bad Calls".

The busts of indoor workers resulted in a delegation from Maggie's and
SWAT meeting with the Police Services Board to discuss policies around
policing prostitution. The Police Services Board has yet to effect any
changes as a result of that meeting and we continue to keep the
pressure on.

Most recently, on behalf of SWAT and Maggie's, Gwendolyn and Codie
have played host to two meetings of over 70 strippers who met to
discuss recent court decisions that appear to ease some restrictions
in strip clubs. These meetings have drawn many potential volunteers
and members into Maggie's.

Maggie's and SWAT have also worked closely to organize opposition to
the "youth porn" law and support for the young male
prostitutes who have been hurt by it. SWAT has been playing a key role
in organizing a broad-based campaign that has been endorsed by over 36
organizations including arts groups, students, feminists, socialists,
AIDS groups, and lesbian and gay groups.

Volunteers and membership

Our sense of being connected to communities of sex workers comes not
just from our staff and board (the majority of whom must always be sex
workers), but from the numbers of individuals from all branches of the
sex industry who have undertaken volunteer outreach for us. Our
volunteer involvement has jumped dramatically over the last couple of
years.

In 1990/91 there were 96 occasions when volunteers participated in
street outreach for approximately 260 hours. In 1991/92 there were
185 occasions during which volunteers contributed approximately 830
hours of outreach time. In 1992/93, volunteers worked with the project
at total number of 1,211 occasions for a total of approximately 3,515
hours. And for the first three quarters of 1993/94, volunteers
participated extensively in outreach and fund raising: 1,456 occasions
for a total of approximately 4,583 hours.

Maggie's has a commitment to volunteer participation for the same
reason we believe in peer education and user-controlled programs. It
encourages the development of a sense of community and a commitment to
mutual aid as well as the sharing of skills and information and the
development of self esteem.

Volunteers participate on our board and committees, organize events
and engage in fund raising, conduct phone and street outreach,
contribute to the newsletter and help staff the resource
centre.

The most successful event in our history took place this
year. WhoreCulture: a festival of sex work, organized by Gwendolyn,
involved countless hours from over 60 volunteers to pull off. The
event consisted of three evenings, the first an evening of live
performance, the second a whore film night, and the third a round
table followed by a party. All were a smashing success. And we raised
the money we needed to meet our commitment to Trillium Foundation. We
held a number of other successful events throughout the year most
notably our seasonal barbecue and X-mas parties.

Our membership continues to grow as well. Last year, as of February 8,
Maggie's had 36 members, 29 of whom could vote. As of March 4, 1994,
Maggie's has 44 members, 36 of whom can vote. Only current or former
sex workers can be voting members. Board members who are not sex
workers can also vote while they are serving their term on the
board.